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Doha skyline. Copyright: Erica Gies.

The water-energy nexus has been coming into focus over the last couple of years. The idea is that water and energy are inextricably linked: it takes water to make energy and energy to clean and move water. In the last year or so, a third critical human resource has been added to the mix: food.

Theoretically, we can better and more sustainably manage each of these resources if we understand their impact on each other.

This week the water-energy-food nexus hit prime time at Rio+20, with meetings following out from reports at the 2011 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; a dedicated meeting in Bonn, Germany; and the Sixth World Water Forum in Marseilles, France, in March. These meetings have reached similar conclusions: The water, energy and food security nexus will be one of the major challenges in achieving universal access to these resources without compromising the health and stability of the environment.

A “side event” at Rio+20 looked at the importance of mountains in this nexus:

More than half of humanity relies on water from mountains. Glaciers, ice fields, and snowpack store an immense amount of fresh water and gradually release it to meet year-round needs for irrigation, drinking, sanitation, industrial processing, clean energy, and food production. Mountains are sources of rich biodiversity providing numerous foods and medicinal products. These services are vital for human wellbeing, both in the mountains and downstream, and especially for improving the lives of indigenous, marginalized, and poor people.

And there was plenty of bureaucratic-speak about how to fix it, which, in English, boils down to these basic points:

The discussion on food and water security at Rio+20 focused on setting Sustainable Development Goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals, which are set to expire in 2015. While some progress was made in articulating them, per usual with these meetings, it’s unclear whether these discussions will lead to meaningful change on the ground.

It’s like herding cats to get the active cooperation of some 200 nations. Realistically, these innovations are likely to emerge on a national or regional scale.

The Persian Gulf countries have been at the forefront of water scarcity issues due to the region’s inherent water scarcity. Now that their populations are booming, thanks to the economic draw of oil and gas development, their innovative solutions from decades past are now reaching the breaking point.

I traveled to Oman and Qatar last fall to cover that latter’s second Annual Research Forum for the New York Academy of Sciences. The Middle East is an historically arid region – and getting more so due to climate change. Gulf temperatures are projected to increase 1.8°C by 2040.

Qatar’s population in 2020 is projected to double from its 2009 levels. Meanwhile, its location on an arid limestone peninsula means it’s not well suited to agriculture: the country currently imports about 90 percent of its food, according to the Qatar National Food Security Programme. Twenty-five percent of the aquifers in Qatar have already been depleted, and those remaining are being consumed at six times the renewal rate. Seawater intrusion is also an issue, said Tareq Al-Ansari, a graduate trainee at Imperial College in London, in a presentation at the conference.

Qatar gets 100 percent of its drinking water from desalination, and concentrated brine is expelled into the Persian Gulf. That water body’s salinity level has increased dramatically over the last 40 years as a result of this practice, as well as the dumping of “produced water” from oil and gas development into the Gulf.

Rabi Mohtar, executive director of the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute at the Qatar Foundation is advocating for an “integrated sustainability index” for water policy. He wants to apply science to the problem: explicitly define the water system’s links to food, energy, climate, and the economy to allow for integrated management of these important areas.

He believes trying to accurately measure how these sectors impact each other and the environment is the first step to managing them concurrently.